Simone de Beauvoir: From Motherhood to Otherness?

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Imam Khomeini International University

10.22061/orj.2023.1852

Abstract

 As the mother of feminism, Simone de Beauvoiris the most important element of the women's struggles in 19th century. Sheholds that women are under oppression in each period of their lives and this oppressionstems from a male-dominated society. Simone de Beauvoirasks women to struggle against this oppression but she didn't direct all problems imposed on women against men. Under the influence ofHeidegger and Sartre's philosophies and drawing on existentialistic views, she considers women as the object versus the subject, the other versus I and the being versus the becoming. In her view, women have been regarded as the 2nd sex in any period of their lives and to have access to their real and transcendent self, they should go over the situation that has been imposed upon them. In one chapter of her 2nd sex, she deals with the impacts of motherhood upon women and retells the women's disasters and problems. The present paper is an attempt to analyze and assessed Beauvoir's views on women's situation as the object, the mother and the 2nd sex who has the role of motherhood and then proceed to show that why becoming a mother cannot leave women from otherness.

Keywords


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